Constitutional Guided Walking Tours v. Independence Visitor Center Corp.

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
____________
No. 11-2146
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL GUIDED WALKING TOURS;
JONATHAN H. BARI; LESLIE S. BARI,
Appellants
v.
INDEPENDENCE VISITOR CENTER CORPORATION; WILLIAM W. MOORE;
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, An Agency of the United States; DENNIS REIDENBACH,
Individually and in his Official Capacity as Northeast Regional Director of the NPS; CYNTHIA
MACLEOD, Individually and in her Official Capacity as Superintendent of the INHP; DARLA
SIDLES, Individually and in her Official Capacity as Deputy Superintendent of the INHP
____________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 09-cv-03083)
District Judge: Honorable C. Darnell Jones, II
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Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
December 6, 2011
Before: HARDIMAN, BARRY and VAN ANTWERPEN, Circuit Judges.
(Filed: December 6, 2011)
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OPINION OF THE COURT
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HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.
Constitutional Guided Walking Tours (Constitutional Tours) and its owners,
Jonathan and Leslie Bari (the Baris), appeal the District Court‟s judgment dismissing
their first amended complaint. We will affirm.
I
Because we write for the parties, who are well acquainted with the case, we
recount only the essential facts and procedural history.
The Baris own and operate Constitutional Tours, a business offering walking tours
of Philadelphia‟s Independence National Historic Park (Independence Park). Established
as a unit of the national park system pursuant to 16 U.S.C. § 407m, Independence Park is
administered by the National Park Service (the Park Service). Since 1999, Independence
Park has been managed by the Independence Visitor Center Corporation (the Visitor
Center Corporation) pursuant to the Gateway Visitor Center Authorization Act (the
Authorization Act),1 Pub. L. No. 106-131, 113 Stat. 1678 (1999). The Authorization Act
provides that the Secretary of the Interior, “in administering [Independence Park], may
enter into an agreement under appropriate terms and conditions with the Gateway Visitor
Center Corporation . . . to facilitate the construction and operation of a regional Gateway
Visitor Center on Independence Mall.” Authorization Act § 3(a). During the period
relevant to this appeal, the Visitor Center Corporation operated Independence Park‟s
Visitor Center under successive “special use permits” (SUPs).
1
The Visitor Center Corporation was formerly known as the Gateway Visitor
Center Corporation.
2
Businesses like Constitutional Tours contract with the Visitor Center Corporation
to sell tickets, display brochures, gather customers, and store materials in the Visitor
Center. The Visitor Center Corporation and Constitutional Tours entered into a year-long
“admission sales agreement” in 2005. After that contract expired, Constitutional Tours
was unable to negotiate new agreements with the Visitor Center Corporation.
Consequently, Constitutional Tours‟s access to the Visitor Center was limited to meeting
customers and commencing tours in the facility under restrictions not imposed on
businesses that had secured contracts with the Visitor Center Corporation.
In 2009, Constitutional Tours and the Baris filed an eight-count complaint in the
District Court against the Park Service; Park Service employees Dennis Reidenbach,
Cynthia MacLeod, and Darla Sidles; and the Visitor Center Corporation and its former
president, William Moore. We need only address Counts One and Two of the complaint
because Appellants voluntarily withdrew Count Eight, and the District Court did not
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over their state law claims (Counts Three through
Seven).
In Count One, Appellants sued the Park Service under the Administrative
Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., arguing that because the Visitor Center
Corporation‟s SUPs were not the type of agreement contemplated in the Authorization
Act, the delegation of management duties to the Visitor Center Corporation violated the
Authorization Act, the National Park Service Organic Act (the Organic Act), 16 U.S.C.
3
§ l et seq., and the National Park Service Concessions Management and Improvement Act
(the Management Act), 16 U.S.C. § 5951 et seq. In Count Two, Appellants brought
claims under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics,
403 U.S. 388 (1971), against Reidenbach, MacLeod, and Sidles, arguing that they
violated Appellants‟ substantive and procedural due process rights by enabling the Visitor
Center Corporation to treat Constitutional Tours less favorably than its competitors. To
remedy what Appellants characterized as unfair treatment resulting from the Park
Service‟s delegation of Independence Park management to the Visitor Center
Corporation, they asked the District Court to “compel the [Park Service] to enter into a
License Agreement for a prominent and dedicated ticket sales booth inside of the
Independence Visitor Center” and to grant Constitutional Tours “a Commercial Use
Authorization permitting [it] to stage its tours . . . and to conduct solicitation . . . in a
manner comparable to other private parties.”
The District Court dismissed Count One, finding that it lacked subject matter
jurisdiction over the Park Service because Appellants failed to identify a nondiscretionary
action that the Agency was required to take. The Court also dismissed Count Two,
holding that Reidenbach, MacLeod, and Sidles enjoyed qualified immunity for actions
performed in their official capacities.
II
We have jurisdiction over the District Court‟s final order pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
4
§ 1291. We exercise plenary review over the District Court‟s dismissal pursuant to
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) or 12(b)(6). McTernan v. City of York, Pa., 577
F.3d 521, 526 (3d Cir. 2009); Growth Horizons, Inc. v. Del. Cnty., Pa., 983 F.2d 1277,
1280 (3d Cir. 1993).
III
Upon review of the record and the briefs, we will affirm the judgment of the
District Court essentially for the reasons stated in its opinion. See Constitutional Guided
Walking Tours, LLC v. Independence Visitor Ctr. Corp., No. 09-3083, 2011 WL 1234744(E.D. Pa. Mar. 31, 2011).
The Court dismissed Appellants‟ APA claim (Count One) for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction because they “failed to plead a discrete act that the [Park Service] is
required to perform, and [were] unable to do so because the management of the
Independence Visitor[] Center is committed to the agency‟s discretion by applicable
statute and Public Law 106-131.” Id. at *3 (emphasis omitted).
When evaluating a claim made pursuant to the APA, we must ask “whether the
action at issue . . . was discretionary” and “distinguish[] between actions which an agency
official may freely decide to take or not to take, and those which he is obligated by law to
take or not to take.” Pinho v. Gonzales, 432 F.3d 193, 203 (3d Cir. 2005). Judicial
review of an agency action is permitted where the action was final, non-discretionary, and
“adversely affect[ed] the party seeking review.” Id. at 200.
5
Appellants failed to meet the second requirement to establish the reviewability of
their APA claim. They argue that because the Park Service and the Visitor Center
Corporation had not reached the kind of agreement contemplated by the Authorization
Act, the Park Service lacked authority to engage in cooperative management and
therefore delegated its duties in violation of the Authorization Act, the Organic Act and
the Management Act. The Authorization Act states that “[t]he Secretary of the
Interior . . . may enter into an agreement” with the Visitor Center Corporation,
Authorization Act § 3(a) (emphasis added), not that it must do so. As the District Court
aptly noted, the language of the Authorization Act “clearly leaves the [Park Service] with
the absolute discretion to enter into agreements with the [Visitor Center Corporation].”
Constitutional Guided Walking Tours, 2011 WL 1234744, at *5. The Organic Act and
the Management Act, which define the authority of the Park Service with respect to
various entities, also reserve ultimate discretion to the Secretary of the Interior.2 Thus,
2
As the District Court correctly pointed out, the Park Service is granted broad
discretion to determine “whether to issue a concessions contract,” 16 U.S.C. § 5952(10),
whether to contract with private entities “to conduct or assist in . . . the management of
the . . . concessions program,” id. § 5959(a)(1), and whether it is appropriate to issue a
Commercial Use Authorization, id. § 5966(c)(3). Because this broad discretion involves
“managerial choices that are not readily subject to judicial review,” and because the Park
Service‟s alleged actions do not “violate[] a constitutional, statutory, or regulatory
command,” the actions are unreviewable under § 701(a)(1). See Raymond Proffitt Found.
v. United States Army Corps of Eng’rs, 343 F.3d 199, 203, 205 (3d Cir. 2003) (stating
that agency action is unreviewable where it (1) “involves broad discretion;” (2) “is the
product of political . . . or managerial choices that are not readily subject to judicial
6
the District Court committed no error when it dismissed Count One for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction.
Nor did the District Court err when it dismissed Count Two based on qualified
immunity. “The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials „from
liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established
statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.‟”
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S.
800, 818 (1982)). The Supreme Court established a two-prong test for claims of qualified
immunity in Saucier v. Katz, explaining that “the first inquiry must be whether a
constitutional right would have been violated on the facts alleged; second, assuming the
violation is established, the question whether the right was clearly established must be
considered.” 533 U.S. 194, 200 (2001). In Pearson, the Court held that the two prongs
need not be evaluated in any particular sequence. 555 U.S. at 232, 236.
Appellants failed to meet the first prong of the Saucier test. “Because vicarious
liability is inapplicable to Bivens and § 1983 suits, a plaintiff must plead that each
Government-official defendant, through [his] own individual actions, has violated the
Constitution.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1948 (2009). Appellants‟ claim that
Reidenbach, MacLeod, and Sidles, “under color of federal law, directed, supervised,
review;” and (3) does not “violate[] a constitutional, statutory, or regulatory command”
(quoting Davis Enters. v. EPA, 877 F.2d 1181, 1185 (3d Cir. 1989))).
7
condoned and endorsed arbitrary and capricious conduct toward [Appellants],” does not
demonstrate any violation of a constitutional right. Though they claim that Reidenbach,
MacLeod, and Sidles limited Constitutional Tours‟s access to the Visitor Center while
treating Constitutional Tours‟s competitors more favorably, Appellants fail to allege that
these competitors operated under preferential lease terms that had not been offered to
Constitutional Tours during its failed contract negotiations with the Visitor Center
Corporation. Furthermore, as the District Court correctly noted, Appellants “fail to
acknowledge the significant discretionary authority vested in [the individual d]efendants”
with respect to the conduct they characterize as discriminatory. Constitutional Guided
Walking Tours, 2011 WL 1234744, at *10.
Appellants‟ failure to satisfy the first prong of the qualified immunity analysis
obviates the need to evaluate the second prong. The District Court did not err when it
dismissed Appellants‟ Bivens claims against Reidenbach, MacLeod, and Sidles.
IV
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the District Court‟s judgment.
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